The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey eBook

So their interview with Deacon Winslow proved a very
enjoyable one after all. Hugh felt he should
like to know the big amiable blacksmith better, for
he had been drawn to him very much indeed.

“And,” he told Thad, as they trudged back
along the road to town, “the way things seem
to be working, I’m more than ever encouraged
to keep on with my experiment.”

CHAPTER VII

TURNING A PAGE OF THE PAST

“Do you know,” mused Thad, as they continued
on their way to town, “the more I see of that
blacksmith the better I like him. In my opinion,
he’s a grand old man.”

“I was just going to say that myself,”
Hugh told him. “He makes me think of the
priest in the story. And they say he loves boys—­all
boys.”

“You can’t make him believe there’s
a boy living but who has something worth while
in him,” Thad advanced. “Sometimes
it’s hid under a whole lot of trash, as Deacon
Winslow calls it, and you’ve got to search a
heap before you strike gold; but if you only persist
you’ll be rewarded.”

“His actions with regard to Nick prove that
he practices what he preaches, too,” said Hugh.

“Well, the old man went through a bitter experience
many years ago,” Thad went on to say; “and
he learned his lesson for life, he often says.”

“Why, how’s that, Thad? I’ve
heard a great many things about different people since
we came to Scranton; but I don’t remember listening
to what happened to the old deacon long ago.”

“Is that a fact, Hugh? Well, I’ll
have to tell you about it, then. Once upon a
time they had a boy, an only child; and, as happens
in some families where the parents are the finest
kind of Christian people, young Joel had a bad streak
in his make-up. Oh! they say he gave his father
no end of trouble from time to time. And it wound
up in a row, with the boy doing something disgraceful,
and running away from home, nearly breaking his mother’s
heart.”

“Didn’t he ever come bad again?”
asked the interested listener.

Thad shook his head in the negative.

“They never looked on his face again, either
living or dead,” he said. “Worse
than that, they never even heard from him. It
was as if Joel had dropped out of sight that night
when he left a line to his mother saying he was going
west to where they raised men, not sissies.
And so the years rolled around, and, they say, the
old lady even now sits looking into the sunset skies,
dreaming that her Joel, just as she remembered him,
had sent word he was coming back to visit them in
their old age, and to ask forgiveness for his wrong-doing.”

Hugh was greatly moved by the sad tale, which, however,
he knew could be easily matched in every town of any
size in the country; for it is of common occurrence,
with a multitude of sore hearts turning toward that
Great West.